1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to learning and practicing how to play the game of blackjack in a casino so as to optimize one's opportunity to win under any set of rules and strategies.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
Previous inventions in this field have been based on the flash card model in which a situation is presented on one side of a card with the recommended action presented on the other.
The printing on flash cards is usually unidirectional, that is, the cards must be oriented right-side up to be read correctly. Therefore, when stacked and shuffled, not only must they all be facing up, but in addition, their orientations must be consistent so that as each card is viewed and discarded, the next one is able to be viewed in a similar orientation. This restriction means that care must be taken when shuffling or otherwise mixing unidirectional cards to keep them oriented correctly. Such unidirectional cards sometimes have a unique mark or physical anomaly which facilitates proper orientation when stacking, such as a single notched or flattened corner.
There are card devices which do not have the unidirectional nature of the cards described above. A common example is standard playing cards used to play bridge, poker or blackjack. The card faces are essentially the same when viewed right-side up or upside down, because the symbols and numbers on the faces are arranged symmetrically about a line drawn across the card from one side to the other. The nondirectional nature of playing cards facilitates shuffling of the cards because the orientation of the cards with respect to one another is not a factor, as long as they are stacked all facing the same direction.
Flash cards present a useful way to learn a particular strategy for playing blackjack under a particular set of rules, and have been produced heretofore.
In his book Million Dollar Blackjack (1981), page 124b, Ken Uston presented a set of flash cards for learning how to play blackjack. These cards have subsequently been produced as a stand alone product. The flash cards are about 4 cm square and are printed on the front only. They have numbers and letters in large print representing the playing cards belonging to the player and the dealer. The "answer" is a number in small print in the corner of the card. The player must learn the numbers corresponding to each combination of playing cards, and he uses this knowledge in optimizing his playing of the game. These flash cards have at least two deficiencies. First, they are unidirectional in nature, and therefore very inconvenient to shuffle. Moreover, the numbers and letters in large print are only representations of the values of the player's or dealer's cards. They do not depict the cards as they actually appear when held in the hand. The user must translate what the numbers or letters show into a visualization of the playing situation. This process of translation causes a delay in the learning process, and does not accurately simulate the playing situation.
Another blackjack flash card product is Flash Jack, initially manufactured by V. R. Clavel (1986). Flash Jack comprises a deck of cards which describe the playing situation in words on the front and which have the answers in words on the back. There is no pictorial representation whatsoever of the playing situation, and the cards are unidirectional. The information presented is overly complex and requires significant time and thought to assimilate.
Another blackjack flash card product is a "Free Learning Kit" of flash cards included in John Sharpe's book Low Stakes Blackjack (1994), pages 31-45. Each card is about 2-1/4".times.4" with six 2-card hands and a dealer's card depicted on the face. Each depiction is about 3/8".times.1/2" with a number in the middle. On the back is Sharpe's one recommended action for each hand with page references for why it is recommended. The cards are unidirectional and suffer from bearing no resemblance to the playing conditions of a casino.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,549 to Cywar (1977) discloses a blackjack card deck. Each card has a number and suit printed in the corner to simulate one of the player's cards (Patent FIGS. 1-13). The card has a chart summarizing the action a player should take depending on what other cards are present. The chart has the player's cards and the dealer's cards along its two axes. The cards are unidirectional, and therefore inconvenient to shuffle. Though the symbols in the corners of each card simulate the printing on a playing card, they do not substantially depict any actual playing card situation. The information presented on the card in chart form is relatively complex and difficult to interpret compared to similar charts portrayed in current blackjack literature.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,100,326 to Leep, et al. (1992) discloses a pack of flash cards for teaching and practicing blackjack. The face of each card contains two playing situations on opposite ends of the card arranged so that each appears either right side up or upside down regardless of which end is up. Each half also contains within a frame a smaller perspective image of a card and a still smaller oblong box containing an identifier for a method of grouping subsets of the total deck. The back of each card also presents two separate sections which provide a recommended action for the situation represented on the same half of the card's face. (Patent FIGS. 1-4).
The prior art has not addressed the issue that the optimal way to play most hands varies for different casino rules and for different strategies. They are designed to present one set of playing options in any one embodiment of the design. However, to maximize the opportunities to win at blackjack, a player must know what play to make for each combination of dealer and player cards under different playing rules and regulations. Proper play for some situations can be described in words as a set of rules, such as "Always stand when you have a hard total of nineteen.", "Always take a card when you have a hard total of 11 or less.", "Always take a card when you have a soft total of 17.", Always split a pair of aces.". However, for many situations--particularly those which offer the player the opportunity to increase his bet by as much as double, the optimal play depends on the number of decks being used, the number of cards yet to be dealt, the composition (values) of the cards not yet dealt, and the casino and regulatory rules governing both the dealer's and the players' options.
There are many sources of information for making optimal decisions and for devising one's own. Edward O. Thorp "Beat The Dealer" (1962, 1966) presented the first system for counting cards to guide both betting and playing strategy ascribing from 1 to 10 points for each different card denomination. Julian Braun's "How To Play Winning Blackjack" (1980) derives a "basic strategy" from running several billion hands through a computer and making detailed probability calculations from the results. Peter A. Griffin "The Theory of Blackjack" (1979, 1981) developed mathematical models for determining the player's advantage or disadvantage. Stanford Wong "Professional Blackjack" (1975, 1994) and others (e.g., Ian Anderson, Bryce Carlson, Lawrence Revers, Arnold Snyder, Michael Dalton, J. Paterson) develop simplified plus and minus counting systems which indicate for each hand dealt both the preferred bet size or betting option and how to best play the hand.
While the flash cards disclosed in prior art could be presented in sets with each set showing a preferred way to play for each combination of house and/or regulatory rules, it would mean having at least twelve sets for each strategy recommendation: 6 for when the Dealer is dealt one card face up and one face down and 6 for when the Dealer is dealt both cards face up. 1) Dealer stands on soft seventeen; 2) Dealer hits soft seventeen; 3) Doubling down after splitting a pair; 4) no doubling down after splitting a pair; 5) lose all, except a player two card blackjack, to a dealer's blackjack; 6) doubling and splitting bets returned if the dealer has blackjack. In the popular literature available where gaming books are sold one can find at least four counting systems in addition to each author's presentation of "basic strategy".
However, even if the sixty or more sets of flash cards inferred from the prior art were available to choose from, they do not permit the practice session to resemble the way the cards appear in a casino setting.
Learning to play can be facilitated by the use of a special deck of combination cards. Although 2,652 two-card combinations are possible with one deck of cards, only 1,164 (44%) offer options to the player. For those that do offer playing and betting options it is advantageous to practice them in random order as they would appear during a game in a casino. Since the optimal play varies with both the rules governing play, the dealer's exposed card(s), the number of cards yet to be played and their values, the combination cards used for learning and practicing should not present recommendations that are only optimal for one matrix of conditions.
In summary, cards heretofore known for practicing of blackjack suffer from a number of disadvantages:
(a) The flash cards do not portray a true-to-life depiction of the player's cards as the player would see them when playing at a casino. Instead, plain numbers or letters are used to represent the values of the visible cards. Where pictorial combinations are provided, the cards do not resemble the way the cards faces look to a player in that they have additional graphics and text. PA1 (b) They are flash cards with a situation presented on one side and the provider's recommended action on the other. This prevents the player from simulating actual playing conditions while practicing. PA1 (c) They either assume, erroneously, that there is one preferred method for playing the hands depicted or that the user will need to have a separate set for the particular circumstances at each casino at which he may want to play. PA1 (d) Flash cards cannot be assembled into a deck and dealt out randomly face down so that the player does not know what combination is presented as the backs indicate the combination on the face and present the play the author deems best for one particular set of casino rules and regulations. PA1 (e) Those that are unidirectional in nature, prevent easy shuffling as is possible with a standard deck of playing cards. PA1 (f) The information on the cards is frequently complex. Complexity deters the user from practicing under simulated casino conditions. PA1 (g) There exists no simple means for accurately representing the multiple card combinations in the player's hand as they would appear to him in a casino game setting. PA1 (h) The additional information on the back of the cards provide clues or guides to the situation depicted. Since the backs of casino cards reveal nothing about the faces, this impedes the transition from practice to casino play. PA1 (a) to provide a method of pictorial representation of combinations of playing cards on cards which will facilitate and expedite the comprehension of card combination situations in the game of blackjack; PA1 (b) to provide a method of pictorial representation of playing cards which will present a more accurate simulation of the activity of playing the game of blackjack than provided by the current art; PA1 (c) to provide a method of pictorial representation of playing cards which permit the identification of the proper play according to whichever strategy the user opts for and to permit the same set of combination cards to be used for other strategy choices when and if the user wants to use another; PA1 (d) to provide a method of arranging information on cards which will enable ease of shuffling of the cards; PA1 (e) to provide a set of cards having the 47 combinations out of a possible 2,652 in which the optimal play varies according to the playing rules promulgated by the governing authority and/or those established by the casino--which can vary from table to table; the cards in play and the cards yet to be played before the dealer reshuffles.